


I love you as certain things are to be loved (secretly, between the shadow and the soul)

by titasjournal



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Season 3 Spoilers, Winifred Rose (mentioned) - Freeform, just love letter swapin', love all around, pen!pals, post-season 3, s3e05 - the dance lesson (mentioned), s3e06 - the county fair (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titasjournal/pseuds/titasjournal
Summary: In a box beneath their bed, Anne and Gilbert keep all the letters they've exchanged over the course of their relationship. These are them.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 101





	1. yours most elated

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Anne of Green Gables universe, obviously. Reviews are encounraged and needed!!! You can find me on twitter too @goldentaylights.  
> Title from Pablo Neruda's poetry.

Letter #1 

Dear Gilbert, 

I look like my mother… To know this fills me with the utmost joy. I realise my deep-rooted hatred for my appearance stemmed from not knowing my true origins - having now seen a portrait of my mother folded between pages of a book, I find comfort in knowing a part of her has always lived in my red locks and awfully scattered freckles.

I should explain - Matthew and Marilla, in a miracle straight out of an epic novel, discovered a book of plants my father gifted to my mother in hopes she’d share it with her students - my mother was a teacher! Oh, how tremendously exquisite it is to know from where my enthralment with words sprung! I can positively affirm that I have never felt closest to my mother. I cannot wait to share with you what more I learn about my heritage!

By writing to you, I am officially breaking curfew on my first day at the boarding house, so if am severely punished, I sincerely hope it weighs on your conscience, as you and you alone consume my every thought. I am afraid I am unable to cease this letter until I have bared my heart to you. Dearest Diana told me all about your conversation on the train to Queens and how you never found my letter (which proves, once again, what bad luck we’ve been fated with by the miscommunication Goddess). I should let you know the contents of it as simply as I put it on that day - I love you, not in the childish way I did when we competed in class or in the dumbfounded state I was in the night after exams, but truly and most ardently. I love you, Gilbert Blythe, as I never expected to love someone.

Now I would humbly ask you to indulge me in answering my most profound and burning queries: what were the contents of the letter you left on my bureau? (I regretfully admit I shred it to pieces once I believed you would be wed to Winifred, and for that I ask that you have to forgive me); when did you realise your feelings toward me?; when will we see each other again?

I hope this letter finds you well and safe in Toronto and I pray that you have scope for imagination in the city, as well as that your first classes are a success. 

You shall be in my dreamscape, tonight and all the days after until I am able to see your face before me again. 

Yours most elated,

Anne

* * *

Letter #2 

Dear Anne,

It is impossible for me to describe the overwhelming bliss that came with reading and rereading your letter. I am most thankful to the universe for giving you your most wanted wish: your family. And it equally thrills me to know that you can, at last, see the beauty I have been secretly admiring since that fateful slap with your slate. It is selfishly that I am thankful I cannot tell you this in person: you are beautiful, my dearest Anne; for I reckon you would be enraged at how lazy and lousy that description of you is. (How romantic is it that thoughts of you propel alliterations onto paper?)

I am now settled comfortably in life in Toronto: my roommate is rather kind and smart; too soon to know for certain, but I believe him to be a kindred spirit. Classes so far, although infuriatingly demanding, are marvelously fulfilling. How is Queens University treating you? I trust you are excelling already in your classes, for your never-ending quest for knowledge is one of the characteristics that continuously makes me fall in love with you. 

On that note, I should promptly answer your questions, for I have been rambling on for two paragraphs already. 

The letter I left you passionately emphasised my undying devotion to you: I could never, and shall never, be engaged to someone unless it is to you. I believe I also referred to you as my “Anne with an E”, though I would never write that again for fear that you would think it possessive of me. 

As to when I realised the depth of my feelings for you, it was the very same day (and the very reason why) I broke it off with Winifred. In truth, I have loved you far longer than that and I now am certain I have loved you since the very first day we met. The day I was to go into Charlottetown to propose, a strange force from within guided me to the cliff and, as I stood in front of the reckless ocean, my soul was bare and transparent, for I could at last see what was truly in my heart: you. It has always and shall always be you, dearest Anne. As my mind spireled, I began walking towards Green Gables, towards you, my one true love. On the way, I found the ruins of your storybook club and, shamelessly, stole a shell I found by the slates. I redden at the admission that I have carried it with me since that very moment and do not plan on abandoning it should you ever stop loving me. Once I reached Green Gables, I wrote you the letter on the back of your shopping list and found myself drawn to your room. I folded the paper neatly and, along with your fountain pen, laid it on your bureau. And I must add that you should not feel guilty for ridding yourself of my letter: it is I who should be asking for your forgiveness for so carelessly leaving a defining decision in both our lives to a moment of half-spoken words and the effects of Moonshine.

I wish there was a single panacea for this love-sickness you have thrust upon me, but, alas, I am left to fantasise about your soft skin and the taste of your lips. I long for the day we are reunited: when that’ll be, I cannot be certain, but I started devising a plan the second I lost sight of you from the carriage. 

Until we meet again, dearest, I promise to love you as best I can through these letters. You make my heart soar. 

With love, 

Gilbert

P.S: I have questions of my own too: when did you, too, realise your feelings for me? And how much pain did I cause you? Thank Diana on my behalf for bringing us together through her rage.


	2. yours most devotedly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne tells Gilbert about life in Queens, reacts to his love letter & compares him to poetry. She recalls her memories of the dance lesson & County Fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter features one letter because i am trying to keep each chapter with ~1K words :)  
> thank you to everyone who read/reviewed the first chapter - if you only knew how much that means to me!  
> if you have any thoughts you'd like to share with me, be it a review, some subject you'd want me to write about or a headcanon you'd like to see written, don't be shy and drop it down below!  
> big thanks to my beta (dameronsbutt), you are my dearest diana.

Letter #3

Dear Gilbert,

I don’t know which I love more, the word _panacea_ or the fact that I am the muse to your love-stricken words. 

I am in raptures of delight to learn that University of Toronto is challenging and exciting you! If your new roommate is indeed a kindred spirit akin to my dearest Diana, I shall be thrilled to make his acquaintance in the future. 

Speaking of my dearest Diana, you will be pleased to know she is adjusting very well indeed to life here in Queens - it is such a blessing to go about this chapter of my life with her by my side! She has decided, with some convincing on Aunt Jo’s part, to pursue a degree in classical music. However, she has enrolled in some classes with me, our favorite being English Literature. We just adore how it reminds us of our Storybook Club back in Avonlea, even if we have to endure our professor! We have settled on referring to him solely as The Staid One, for he hardly ever changes expression! How could one remain utterly indifferent to such magical and enticing compositions of words? Perhaps, once we meet again, I could share with you my new favorite reads.

Now, I must admit the words on your last letter couldn’t help but make me flush a bright pink - and you, most of all, know how much I despise pink on my skintone! But I shall forgive that tiny trespassing, for your words have filled me with such joy and euphoria! To know the lengths your heart and mind go only to love me is to know absolute bliss - and the hard proof of that is the small bruise on my left wrist, for every time I am reminded of your love and your affections, I must pinch myself back to reality. 

On the note of your affections… My darling Gilbert, it has only been two weeks since your warm arms enveloped me and your enrapturing lips were placed upon my very own, yet I have a hard time remembering the exact feeling - Oh, how I dream of the day we are reunited! Some nights, after I drift off to slumber, your face appears before me, and slowly the rest of your body, and I imagine we are laying on a wide, green meadow, sunflowers and yellow dandelions perfuming the spring air. I am aware it is hardly spring weather where we are, but when I awake I can almost feel your hands on my skin and the sweet scent of nature… I am sure, should Marilla ever find this letter, she’d reprimand me for impropriety! 

Oh sweet Marilla, how positively happy she is for the both of us! It warmed my heart so to hear her words of encouragement to me once I realised my true feelings for you, my darling. I believe I owe you that very same story - the day my love for you was revealed to me was the very day of Ms. Stacy’s dance lesson. I flush at the admission that, every time our hands touched, my heart grew more and more fond of you. However, it was your eyes that divulged it to me - I thought to myself, should my life from here on out be comprised solely of a moment where your deep, brown eyes are looking into mine, my happiness would reach its zenith. I am afraid, once I comprehended that I was irreparably in love with you, I could not hold it in, for Diana, Marilla and Matthew were made aware. 

I wish you were made aware. 

That day, at the County Fair, I wanted nothing more than to bare my soul to you, but my lack of confidence in your feelings for me, after I saw you with Winnifred and her parents, prevented me from doing so, as I was so excruciatingly anguished. However, I was being truthful when I wished you both a happy life together. How serendipitous is it that I now wish we, together, have a happy life? 

I am not hurt any longer, darling Gilbert. We must put apologies of our miscommunication behind us, for we would never cease to apologise until the end of time. It was not your actions that broke my heart so much as my ardent love for you.

> “Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
> 
> If once into love's hands it come!
> 
> All other griefs allow a part
> 
> To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
> 
> They come to us, but us love draws;
> 
> He swallows us and never chaws.”

I thought you would appreciate this poem we read in class, for it reminded me of our trials and how we overcame them!

I miss our Island - I long to be reunited with Matthew and Marilla, dear Belle and Prejudice, the Lake of Shining Waters and the White Way of Delight; I miss Ms. Stacy’s encouragement and little Delly-girl; most of all, I long to kiss your lips once more, Gilbert. I ask that you remind me of home and all of our most romantic, harmonious and gloriously delightful moments! 

I hope my words brighten the gloomy sky of Toronto and that you fall in love with your new home away from home, that you find kindred spirits and, most of all, that you not forget about me. 

Yours most devotedly,

Your Anne with an E

P.S: You are not, and could never be, possessive. I am, indeed, your Anne with an E and no one else’s.

P.P.S: Should the desire to come and visit me arise, suitors are allowed on Saturdays between two and four in the afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stanza quoted was written by John Donne.  
> Again, if you have any thoughts on how this chapter was written or have any scenes/headcanons/suggestions you'd like to make, I'll be glad to read 'em!


End file.
